Coco's idea for stimulating the economy is for doggies to run out and have litter after litter of puppies. Hungry little puppies ripping up couches and gobbling down kibbles would definately stimulate things.
Puppies are adorable and are politically popular. I would vote for a puppy over any politician in either major political party.
Encouraging the production of puppies to stop the recession sounds politically popular and is just plain tale wagging fun. The stark reality, however, is that pets are generally the first to suffer in a recession.
Often people magnify their poor financial condition by adopting a pet they cannot afford. When a person living on credit adopts a pet, they dramatically worsen their financial condition.
To the point: the notion of stimulating the economy by having puppies is an idea. It's more than an idea. It is a cute idea ... the most dangerous kind.
A complex of ideas is called an ideology. The ideology includes both the ideas and overall framework of ideas. It is absurd to pretend that ideas are just floating out their independent of the framework in which they exist.
In order for us to make the right decisions we need to be able to talk about ideas and ideology.
Unfortunately, about a century ago a guy named John Dewey (1859-1952) realized that Americans weren't latching onto the new think methods of Hegel and Marx. He lighted on the paradoxical idea of introducing material dialectics as a non-ideology.
The media (weaned on thoughts of Dewey, Chomsky and other intellectuals of the Marxian tradition) has been pounding the notion that the cause of the world's woes is ideology. The future depends on a system of radical change were there is no public discussion of the ideas behind the change.
Apparently this ideology of non-ideology sounds exciting to many. I simply wish to emphasize that the ideology non-ideology is not new. For that matter, it is the organizing principle behind the American public school and University system.
The ideology of Non-ideology has created this horrible world where the US invades other countries without having a clear idea on what it hopes to accomplish.
On realizing our mistake, the majority of Americans were willing to leave Iraq to Vietnam style genocide.
Our financial wizards fell head over heals for absurd schemes like credit default swaps, hedgefunds, short selling, and government backed re-insurance ... all of which are guaratanteed to create systemic faults in the economy.
The ideology of non-ideology has been the central organizing principle in our political life for over a half century.
I contend that our failure to have a cohesive ideology of freedom might lead to a a surrending of our freedom.
What we have right now is an image driven politics where corrupt parties compete on which party is best at projecting blame on their opponents. Politicians then line up to project success on their friends.
This image driven politics that is cultivated in our schools and perpetuated in the press systematically leads to the worst decisions.
Coco's idea that puppies would stimulate the economy is an adorable, furry, big-eyed, puppy-dog cute idea.
A basket of happy puppies is a joyous image.
There is even merit to the idea that an explosion in the puppy population would get people spending as they will need to replace things destroyed by the puppies. People would also borrow and spend like mad to feed the puppies.
Unfortunately, as puppies are high maintenance luxury good, the puppy boom idea is likely to lead to thousands of poor starving puppies and heartbroken humans who can't feed them.
My gut feeling is that the puppy explosion will further weeken the economy.
Unfortunately, my arguing for the spaying and neutering of dogs sets things up so Keith-Olberman-style thugs can portray me as a puppy hater.
Can you imagine anything else in the world than a puppy hater.
Look what they did to Michael Vicks!
If he had done something benign like staturory rape, then he could make a media frenzy comeback. Being a puppy hater means end of career.
BTW: Were we, as a people allowed to discuss ideas, I suspect that we would realize that the government is not really the best place to determine the quota of puppies and that the humane approach to the issue is to promote responsible pet ownership.
A conversation might lead to the conclusion that, in the current economic slowdown, people should follow the evil conservative advice and be extremely aggressive in checking pet population.
Anyway, with the 2008 election, Americans voted for a change. They voted for the image driven candidate. I hope that someday Americans realize that most of our problems are a result of the image-driven non-ideology ideology that comes from the education system.
Until then, I guess I must wear the brand of puppy hater for advocating the fixing of pets.
2 comments:
"I contend that our failure to have a cohesive ideology of freedom might lead to a a surrending of our freedom.
"What we have right now is an image driven politics where corrupt parties compete on which party is best at projecting blame on their opponents. Politicians then line up to project success on their friends."
True words indeed. One question, though. Has politics ever been different than the current image driven model?
Politicians have had good moments.
I am actually more worried about our education system as it appears that the schools are teaching duplicity as a way of life.
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